oh man i take ppl's point I GUESS abt the slow steady decline in the band's songwriting/albs (after the peak of #2 imho) but some of the bonus/outtakes on the cd version of big pink point to the incredibly fecundity of their 'early' period - i mean, to leave off 'Katie's Been Gone', w/ another heartbreakingly gorgeous manuel vocal, is just criminal! and the fact that the only surviving version of Ferdinand the Imposter is v. sonically imperfect is a gddamm crime!

It's one of those cases of "you have your whole life to make your first album and six months to make your second," I think. The Band had a huge backlog, and once they caught up with it it was a struggle to come up with new stuff on par with their peak (see also; Cheap Trick, Van Halen). If anything, the key to the evolution of, say, the Stones and Beatles is that they started with a bunch of covers and worked their way up from there. Plus, the Band stopped living together, in Big Pink or on the road, and according to Levon they had trouble recapturing that vibe when they tried to recreate it in L.A.

It's amazing, by way, how much of an impression the Band made on the Brits, with group after group trying to glom onto their shambling Americana vibe vibe. I mean, the Beatles and Eric Clapton are two of the last acts I think of what I think of the Band. but they were both uber-besoted.

yeah, pretty different interpretation, but gets to the heart of the song. I dunno, I think that song (and "whispering pines" too) gets to a kind of dreamlike americana thing that robbie robertson couldn't quite nail on his own. robertson's more of a novelist, whereas manuel is like an impressionistic painter. or something!

listening to this album again this week, i was struck by one thing -- what did these songs sound like when Robertson presented them to the rest of the Band? Seems like there's never been, like, a solo demo of "The Weight" that's come out on bootleg or otherwise. Maybe that sort of thing doesn't exist.

I'll admit to being one of the people who's obsessed with The Band's first two albums but rarely feels the need to explore very far into their later work.

Same here, pretty much, even though "Stage Fright" itself is possibly my favourite song by them. There are some great songs on the other albums and they always play and sing immaculately and I can never think of an occasion when they embarrass themselves but, I don't know, the tunes just aren't there